The Cyber Security Summer Hub

Speakers

Ofelia Bercaru

Ofelia Bercaru joined the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in 2009 being involved from the early days in setting up the REACH processes, in particular on hazard assessment. She is currently leading the Directorate for Prioritisation and Integration being responsible for the strategy for selecting substances for regulatory action under REACH, CLP and other legislation and development of computational tools for data collection and priority setting.

Ofelia has more than 20 years of experience in the field of chemicals management, being involved in a wide range of activities related to environmental monitoring, hazard and risk assessment. Before joining ECHA, she has been working in different positions in the European Commission and national research centres.

Ofelia holds a chemistry degree from the University of Bucharest and a PhD in chemistry from the Catholic University of Leuven.

Ofelia Bercaru

Head of Science Policy & Regulation

European Chemicals Agency (ECHA)

Mathieu Flamini

Mathieu is a partner of GFBiochemicals, the leading global producer of levulinic acid and derivatives. He co-founded the business with the ambition of finding sustainable alternatives to oil-based products. He has always been interested in new technology and has played an active role in developing his businesses.

At the World Bio Markets Awards in 2016, he was nominated as Bio-based Business Person of the Year. He is also a member of the Paris 2024 Olympic Environmental Excellence Committee.

Mathieu was part of the team that created BIOCIRCE, Europe’s first Masters’ degree dedicated to the bio-economy, through GFBiochemical’s collaboration with several leading Italian universities. In addition, Mathieu co-founded the BioJournal, the world’s first e-magazine devoted entirely to the bio world and eco-sustainability.

Mathieu Flamini

CEO and Co-founder

GF Biochemicals

Gavin Maxwell

Dr Gavin Maxwell is Safety Science Advocacy Lead within Unilever’s Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC). Gavin studied immunology and since joining Unilever in 2004 has been involved in the development, evaluation and application of Skin Sensitisation New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) for Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA). He’s also helped lead EU Cosmetics Industry-funded non-animal safety science programmes for the last 15 years and is currently industry co-chair for the European Partnerships for Alternatives to Animal Testing (EPAA).

Gavin Maxwell

Co-Chair

European Partnerships for Alternatives to Animal Testing (EPAA)

Emily McIvor

Emily McIvor is a leading expert in EU animal protection policy, specialising in the replacement of animals used in research and testing. She currently chairs the Mirror Group of the European Partnership on Alternatives to Animal Testing (EPAA) and was closely involved in stakeholder activities during the negotiation of REACH, Directive 2010/63 EU (the “animal experiments directive”) and the Cosmetics Regulation.

As a former member of the EU-funded AXLR8 project consortium and contributor to the ECVAM Stakeholder Advisory Forum, Emily has promoted EU research and policy objectives concerning the development of non-animal test methods over several years.

More recently, Emily was closely involved in creating and campaigning for the “Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics” European Citizens’ Initiative, which – having gained over 1.4 million signatures – is expected to meet the threshold requiring the European Commission to respond to objectives including transforming EU chemicals legislation without new animal testing.

Emily McIvor

Science Policy Advisor,

Animal Protection

Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga

Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga has been appointed Professor in Evidence-Based Transition to Animal-Free Innovations at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University since 1 June 2022. Since her graduation as a vet in 1986, she has been committed to the goal of implementing the 3Rs and improving the quality of science and animal welfare, aiming to obtain results that are more translatable to the human patient. From 2017-2022 she was Professor in Evidence-Based Laboratory Animal Science at Radboudumc. From 2005-2017 Merel was the head of the Central Animal Facility CDL at Radboud and professor in Laboratory Animal Science. From 1997-2005 she was professor in Laboratory Animal Science and Comparative Medicine at the University of Southern Denmark, also being the manager of the central animal facility of the Faculty of Medicine.

She founded SYRCLE (Systematic Review Center for Laboratory animal Experimentation) in 2012. Merel has been participating in the transition team of the Dutch Transition Programme for Innovation (tpi) without the use of animals, representing academia. Her current focus in research and teaching is on inter- and transdisciplinary research in order to achieve the goal of accelerating the transition to animal-free innovations.

Merel Ritskes-Hoitinga

Professor in Evidence-Based Transition to Animal-Free Innovations

Utrecht University

Anna Lennquist

Anna Lennquist holds a PhD in ecotoxicology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She also has a degree in journalism from the same University.

Anna joined ChemSec in 2011 and has since focused on substitution of hazardous chemicals, first in the development of the SUBSPORT project and later ChemSec Marketplace. In 2013 she became the project manager of the SIN List.

Anna Lennquist

Senior Toxicologist

ChemSec

Nicole Kleinstreuer

At NICEATM, Dr. Nicole Kleinstreuer leads domestic and international efforts to develop novel testing and analysis strategies that provide more rapid, mechanistic, and human-relevant predictions of potential environmental chemical hazards.

Kleinstreuer’s research focuses on mathematical and computational modelling of biological systems and their susceptibility to perturbations that result in adverse health outcomes. She has a secondary appointment in the NIEHS Division of Intramural Research Biostatistics and Computational Biology Branch, and adjunct faculty positions in the Yale University School of Public Health and the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She has published over 125 peer-reviewed publications and won numerous awards, including the 2022 NIH Director’s Award, the 2019 Society of Toxicology Achievement Award, the 2016 Young Researcher Americas Award from the Lush Prize Foundation, the 2012 US EPA Office of Research and Development Impact Award, and the 2008 B.H. Neumann Prize from the Australian Mathematical Society.

Nicole Kleinstreuer

NICEATM Director (Acting)

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

Stefan Scheuer

Stefan Scheuer has extensive experience of shaping and influencing EU energy and environmental policies, including chemical and water policy. He works with his consultancy team to develop advocacy strategies and forge alliances to win political majorities for effective action. Since 2015, he has represented the environmental, health and consumer interests as a member of the Management Board of the European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki.

Since 2011, he has headed up the Coalition for Energy Savings, the cross-sector stakeholder alliance, which helped to put the energy efficiency first principle into the EU’s Energy Union and to put in place a more ambitious 2030 energy efficiency target. In the past, he led the REACH and water campaigns as Policy Director at the European Environmental Bureau, the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe

Stefan Scheuer

Chief EU Policy Advocate

CHEM Trust

Nicholas Ball

As a senior toxicologist and Senior EH&S Expertise Improvement Manager at the Dow Chemical Company with over 20 years of experience in the field of regulatory toxicology (both government and the chemical industry), Nicholas has provided support for several Dow business units and is actively engaged in delivering global regulatory compliance. He is currently working with colleagues across industry to improve regulatory dossier quality, set up a global data sharing system and prepare all Dow businesses for the upcoming Polymer REACH requirements. He has also been actively engaged in scientific research throughout his time in Dow and has published on several topics including read-across, Exposure adaptations, mutagenicity assessments, skin sensitisation potential, and co-authored book chapters on reproductive and developmental toxicity testing and the use of cheminformatics tools to predict toxicity.

Most recently he led the ECETOC taskforce on exposure-based adaptations under REACH and contributed to the ECETOC Human Health Transformational program development of a framework to assess chemical safety using exposure and NAMs.

Nicholas Ball

Product Safety Expertise,

Dow Chemical Company

Martin Paparella

Dr. Martin Paparella has studied food and biotechnology as well as toxicology. Currently he is a senior researcher at the Institute of Medical Biochemistry of the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria. Martin aims to bridge science with the regulation of chemicals and is contributing to the development and standardization of non-animal-methods based approaches for regulatory toxicology within several related expert working groups for the OECD and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). Martin also contributes to European research projects such as the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risk from Chemicals (PARC) and the European Horizon 2020 project ALTERNATIVE and national activities like the Austrian Green Chemistry Platform

Martin Paparella

Toxicology and Regulation

Medical University Innsbruck

Julia Fentem

Julia leads Unilever’s team of safety & environmental scientists (SEAC). She obtained her PhD in biochemical toxicology at the University of Nottingham Medical School. Subsequently, Julia has been active in the development, validation & use of non-animal approaches for assessing chemical safety for over 30 years, initially working for an animal protection organisation (FRAME) and then the European Commission (ECVAM) before joining Unilever in 1998.

A recipient of the Russell & Burch award in 2011 for her contributions to the advancement of alternative methods, Julia is a leading advocate for applying modern animal-free science in ensuring chemicals are safe and sustainable without animal testing.

Julia Fentem

R&D Vice President

Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre (SEAC), Unilever

Andrew Worth

Dr Worth has degrees in Physiological Sciences and Linguistics, both from Oxford University, and a PhD in computational toxicology from Liverpool John Moores University. He has been involved in JRC activities on chemical risk assessment, alternative test methods, and computational toxicology.

Since 2003, he has led the Computational Toxicology group, which promotes the development, assessment, acceptance and implementation of computational methods suitable for the regulatory assessment of chemicals.

Andrew Worth

Senior Scientific Officer

Joint Research Centre, European Commission

Erik Prochazka

Erik Prochazka has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Health Science and a master’s degree (by research) in Environmental Science from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, both with a focus on environmental toxicology and human health risk assessment.

Prior to joining Cruelty Free International in 2022, Erik dedicated his efforts to the development and validation of novel in vitro testing methods and strategies used in toxicology, and to their application for chemical hazard and risk assessment. Erik has a keen interest in systems biology, mechanistic toxicology, endocrine disruption, and application of new methodology to regulatory toxicology.

In 2019, Erik joined the animal protection sector and started working on EU regulatory testing issues, focusing primarily on the technical and policy aspects of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability.

Erik Prochazka

Senior Science Adviser, Regulatory Toxicology

Cruelty Free International

Ellen Fritsche

Ellen Fritsche holds a Professorship for Environmental Toxicology at the IUF in a joint appointment with the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany. For the last 20 years she has been developing and scientifically validating in vitro new approach methods for developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) testing based on human stem cells. She has been performing species-overarching in vitro studies to understand human specificity in neurodevelopment. Her research focus also includes mechanistic studies on endocrine-related DNT.

In parallel, she has set up a high content screening platform for regulatory DNT testing which is part of the international EFSA/US-EPA/OECD-supported DNT in vitro battery. She is also co-founder of DNTOX, a spin-off company for making DNT in vitro test methods publicly available.

Ellen Fritsche

Professor for Environmental Toxicology,

Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine

Emma Grange

Emma is Cruelty Free Europe’s Head of Science Policy & Regulation, focussing on chemicals. She represents the organisation at international regulatory fora, including at the OECD and the UN, and in Europe at Competent Authority (CARACAL) sessions and at the European Chemicals Agency. Emma has a Master of Science degree in chemistry from Imperial College (London), a PhD in organic chemistry from Bristol University as well as a Masters degree in environmental biogeochemistry from Newcastle University.

Having worked in chemicals manufacturing, environmental consultancy and regulatory affairs, and with dedication to animal protection and the progression to complete elimination of testing on animals, Emma’s efforts further CFE as leading experts on chemicals and animal testing issues.

Emma Grange

Head of Science Policy & Regulation

Cruelty Free Europe